Mass Effect FATE - In The Shadow of the Shepard

Our story begins during the prologue of Mass Effect 2. The annihilation of the legendary Normandy, coupled with the tragic loss of Commander Celerity Shepard, left the Alliance military reeling. Councilor Udina has seized onto Shepard and her crew’s victory over the Reaver, Soverign, during the Battle of the Citadel. His blatant leveraging of this victory has tainted the Council’s view of humanity. While Celerity Shepard and her crew were hailed as saviors, Udina and the other politicians grasped too greedily for power, and now humanity’s position on the Citadel Council is in jeopardy, with the Volus, Elcor and Hanar all eagerly eyeing humanity’s Council seat and their cushy embassy on the Citadel. In short, life returned to normal within a year of Sovereign’s defeat.

But not everyone gave up on the legendary Shepard. A thousand tall tales of her survival and victory circulated every filthy watering hole in the galaxy. More often than not, these tales are investigated by agents of the Shadow Broker.

Post Mass Effect 1 Timeline:

- Celerity Shepard is believed dead, along with the other heroes of the Normandy crew
- While the truth about Soverign’s attack is hotly debated, the Council has gone ahead and christened an unheard-of number of new SPTR agents as conflict flares up across Council space and beyond
- Ashley Williams is nominated the second human SPECTRE agent, more will follow
- Cerberus begins work on PROJECT: LAZARUS with the objective of resurrecting Celerity Shepard
○ Several “practice” facilities are set up working on the various technologies involved, particularly the extremely illegal cloning procedures in use
- The Shadow Broker furiously searches for evidence of Celerity Shepard’s whereabouts despite her highly publicized demise
- Unexplained attacks begin on minor colonies and ships at the edges of civilized space; no root cause is yet identified but all militaries are on alert
- Earth Councillor Udina seeks to use this opportunity to expand human influence within the Council, including physical space within the Citadel, taxation and soverignty rights over many systems discovered or liberated by Cmdr Shepard, and the appointment of more human SPECTRES
- Numerous SPECTRE agents have gone quiet in the span of a few months, this knowledge is kept very private but the rate of agent disappearance is completely unprecedented. No pattern is discerned in the disappearances yet.
- Turian SPECTRE Ascelsus Vaal takes a page from Shepard’s book and recruits a squadron of talented “deputies” to assist her in her duties, a trend many newly recruited SPECTREs are embracing, while old veterans grumble about op-sec and undertrained support jeopardizing missions.